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Oljio's Preparations 

for He Wei, 




Glass. 
Book. 



£Z2~S 



*..©pI§'S 



Preparations for the War. 



READ BEFORE THE 



Ol^io Gorr;rnan6erv| of tlpe Military Oroei 

of tl^e hov|al begioo of tlpe 

Qoiteo States. 



Late Brigadier-General United States Volunteers. 



-# JANUARY 2, 1884. j£- 



CINCINNATI: 

Peter G. Thomson, Printei 

1884. 







mm 







I 3 / 3> 6 



Ot^io'^ 
eD reparations for 3 t^eWar 3 



S "^J© 3 3) 



When our comrade, the Recorder, notified me to 
prepare a paper for the next meeting, a young com- 
panion sitting by my side (General Tom Wood) 
interposed a caution that I should go no further back 
in my reminiscences than the day of the Declaration of 
Independence, which was the limit of his own memory, 
and heeding his kindly admonition I begin my story 
but a short period before the War of the Rebellion. 

The State of Ohio, except a few uniformed volun- 
teer companies, had no military organizations, and was 
almost without a feasible system to raise forces for an 
emergency. When my friend, William H. Lytle, was 
elected a Major-General of the Ohio militia, full of 
enthusiasm to revive a military spirit, and to bring this 
ancient and honorable institution to a respectable posi- 
tion, he claimed my assistance, not only as his friend, 
but as an eltve of the government military school, a 
claim recognized by all its graduates as a binding duty to 



■si'c ■ . A . . W 

give the benefits of that education whenever and 
wherever they can be useful to our country. 

The task was a laborious, and not a very encouraging 
one ; but, under the diligent co-operation of such men 
as Colonel John Kennett and Colonel A. E. Jones, the 
military spirit was kept alive and began to assume 
form. Major Henry G. Kennett raised and organized 
two companies of zouaves from the young men of the city, 
Colonel A. E. Jones, nearly a regiment. The State 
meanwhile gave no encouragement. Legislation was 
needed to relieve the military organizations from the 
heavy and necessary expenses attending the perform- 
ance of their military duties, to provide armories, and 
in other ways to encourage our young men to join 
these companies. 

Weil do I remember my first experience in lobby- 
ing. Going to Columbus with my friend Lytle to 
advocate the passage of a bill to help the volunteer 
companies, in my innocence of the ways of politicians, 
I pleaded the necessity that our State should be better 
prepared to render military assistance to the General 
Government, and, having passed the bill through the 
House, how blandly one of our Senators induced me 
to go home, by assuring me that the bill should 
receive his favorable consideration, and my astonish- 
ment to find that it was his vote that finally killed 
the bill. The Senator could not be made to believe 
in the necessity of the work we were trying to do. 
Even when Fort Sumpter succumbed to the fire of rebel 
guns, he told me that it was only a trick of S. P. 
Chase to fire the northern heart. But the torrent of 
loyalty that was swelling throughout the land, finally 
swept the Senator into the current, and he came beg- 



* ■ • 5 • ■* 

ging for a position in the then organizing forces. But as 
he had no elements of a soldier he secured for himseli 
a • position as Judge Advocate on General McClellan's 
staff. My experience with the citizen soldiery had 
been very limited, and I soon found that there were 
some things I did not know, nor should have dreamed 
of until my eyes were opened by one of the sub-of- 
ficers of a company, innocently coming to me for advice. 
A parade was about to take place of a battalion in 
which were two companies known as the Montgomery 
Guards and the Sarsfield Guards. On the day before 
the parade a lieutenant of the Sarsfield Guards came 
to enquire whether it would be better to turn out as the 
Sarsfield Guards or the Montgomery Guards. To my 
look of wonder, "I am," says he, "a lieutenant of the 
Sarsfield Guards and orderly sergeant of the Mont- 
gomery Guards, and the captain of the Montgomery 
Guards is orderly sergeant of the Sarsfield Guards." And 
so the two companies, in the most friendly manner, were 
made up of each other, and when paraded at different 
times were beautiful to behold, one clad in hibernian 
green, and the other in our national blue ; but when 
paraded together one of them was not there. 

There existed an independent military organization, 
authorized by act of legislature, called the Guthrie Greys. 
It was a well-drilled and well-appearing body of men, 
embracing in its ranks many of the most promising- 
young men of this city. It had many advantages 
over the other military bodies, and for a long time 
held aloof from them, refusing to recognize any supe- 
rior authority except the Governor. This anomalous 
condition of affairs did not conduce to create an effi- 
cient military force, and until the independence was 



*. • 6 ■ • * 

taken from this corps and it was placed under the 
recognized military heads, there were continual mis- 
understandings and jealousies, prejudicial alike to both. 
All these difficulties at length disappeared, and the 
several military corps were working harmoniously 
together, when the rebellious mutterings broke forth into 
open war. At the Hrst call for troops, our Rover regi- 
ment was the first to tender its services to the Governor, 
but the Governor not feeling authorized to accept the 
regiment as a body, sent one company of the Rovers, 
Zouaves, and Lafayette Guards, with a company raised 
by Colonel Len A. Harris on the spur of the moment, 
without delay to the defence of Washington. 

The Guthrie Greys, Colonel Jones' Continentals, 
the Sarsfield and Montgomery Guards, and the High- 
land Guards responded nobly and promptly to the call, 
each becoming the nucleus of a regiment. The Guthrie 
Greys expanded into the Sixth regiment, the Continen- 
tals, with fragments of the Rovers, Zouaves, and High- 
land Guards into the Fifth regiment, and the Montgomery 
and Sarsfield Guards into the Tenth regiment. 

These regiments, with a regiment raised by Colonel 
R. L. McCook from our German fellow citizens (the 
Ninth Ohio), were taken by General Lytle to the race 
course, and there formed Camp Harrison. 

On the 25th of April, while on a visit to General 
Lytle at his camp, I was ordered by General McClel- 
lan to assume command of Camp Harrison. The disap- 
pointment was great to General Lytle, who hoped to 
command this brigade, but being a major-general he 
had too much rank. The noble fellow, determined to 
serve his country, threw aside his rank and became 
colonel of the Tenth Ohio, which he gallantly led in 



many battles, and finally gave his life on the Held of 
Chickamauga. 

At Camp Harrison the four regiments were soon 
and easily put into shape, and mustered into service. 
The wags among the boys were full of mischief, and 
put our friends in the city to needless alarm, by dole- 
ful letters of their suffering and hardships, and aston- 
ished me not a little when called upon by committees 
with offers of provisions to feed our starving soldiers. 
I had but to show the company kitchens, and the 
cheerful spirits of the men to satisfy the committee 
that they were victims of some shallow-pated wag. 

The city authorities, alive to the wants of those who 
were leaving, sent me the following letter : 



Office City Clerk, City Hall, 

Cincinnati, May 8th, 1861. 

Brigadier-General J. H Bates, O. V. M., 

Camp Harrison. 
Dear Sir: 

Will you please notify the commanders of the companies to send 
to the Relief Committee of the City Council, a roll of their members 
whose families will stand in need of assistance, impressing upon them 
the necessity of being careful, as many impositions have been already 
practiced. Respectfully, 

Geo. M. Casey, City Clerk. 



The regiments were ready for their arms, which 
came in the shape of browned-barrel muskets, altered 
from flint to percussion locks, and which the men 
called "Old Brown Bess.''' They were not received as 
graciously as was consistent with good discipline ; in 
fact, one company refused absolutely to receive the 



». .8. 1 

guns, demanding to have rifles or clubs ; but upon my 
ordering them to be disbanded and sent out of camp 
as mutinous, unworthy to be soldiers, they changed their 
minds and took very kindly to Brown Bess. On the 
17th of May, it was determined to abandon Camp 
Harrison, and I was ordered to move my brigade to 
Camp Dennison, and there to assume command, General 
McClellan kindly lending me his own headquarters, a 
dilapidated old stone building, of an order of style part 
barn, part dwelling, and part store, wholly unfit to live 
in, until he should come to take command in person. 

I found General J. D. Cox in command, having 
his own brigade, composed of the fourth, seventh, eighth, 
and eleventh regiments, and General Sleigh, with his 
brigade, composed of the third, twelfth, and thirteenth 
regiments. 

The camp was put in train of instruction and dis- 
cipline. The grand guard-mounting, under the personal 
attention of Major H. G. Kennett, was brought into 
good order and s} r stem ; the officers of the day and 
the officers of the guard were instructed in their sev- 
eral duties by him. The regiments were daily drilled 
in company and regimental drills, the whole command, 
at sunset, went through the ceremony of evening parade. 
The adjutants, regimental and general, had so far im- 
proved in their daily morning reports, that they ceased 
to be returned from department headquarters, endorsed 
in red ink, "respectfully returned for correction." 

The medical department was learning its duties, 
not only in caring for the sick and regulating the 
hospitals, but was receiving lessons in literature, as 
the following will show : 

A surgeon's certificate recommending the discharge 



* • • 9 • ■ * 

of a soldier afflicted with rheumatism, recited that the 
man was suffering from chronic rheumatism, caused by 
his limbs having been broken in a " railroad collision." 
The certificate passed up through all the proper chan- 
nels, receiving the approval of the general command- 
ing his brigade, the approval of the general command- 
ing the camp, was duly forwarded to the department 
headquarters, duly returned, endorsed in red ink, " this 
department is not informed that railroads ever collide." 
The certificate was regularly sent back through all its 
channels to the surgeon who issued it ; but whether the 
red ink cured the rheumatism, or what became of the 
man, was never transmitted through the proper chan- 
nels, and this department remains uninformed. 

In general the camp was in a healthy condition, 
but some of the boys from the country had not fin- 
ished their education before becoming soldiers, they had 
left home without having had the measles and had to 
undergo this seasoning in camp ; but the kindly minis- 
trations of Sister Anthony and her associate sisters, Mrs. 
Lauderback, Mrs. C. J. Wright, and other ladies from 
Cincinnati, some of whom were daily at the camp, did 
much to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate sick. 

The matter of clothing did not proceed as rapidly 
as was needed ; its deficiency was not only inconvenient, 
but furnished cause of complaint and trouble, an in- 
stance of which manifested itself in a certain regiment 
refusing to turn out to drill. The colonel came to me 
to ask what he should do. To my answer, "your 
men must obey, turn out your regiment to drill," he 
replies, "but they wont; shall I put them in the guard 
house?" It was evident this colonel could not handle 
a regiment ; I therefore told him to send his non-com- 



* • • IO • ■ * 

misioned officers over to me. They came and I was 
charmed with their bright and manly appearance, and 
said to them : " Your colonel complains that your regi- 
ment refuses to drill ; you are responsible for this. What 
does it mean?" 

Their spokesman said they had been told on leav- 
ing home to bring only their oldest clothing ; that they 
would be uniformed immediately on arriving in camp ; 
their clothes had become ragged and worn out, and 
they were ashamed to show themselves. My simple re- 
ply was, "This is no excuse. They must obey orders 
even if they have no covering but a shirt. Go back 
and let me see the regiment out at once. 1 ' Five min- 
utes after the regiment was forming on its parade 
ground. I mention this only to show the material of 
some of the regiments. 

Every thing was progressing well, and we were about 
establishing schools of instruction for the officers, when, 
on the 25th of May, I received these two telegrams : 



General Bates : 

As rapidly as possible get your men ready to move. Inspect 
arms and report how many fit for service. Keep this telegram 
strictly to yourself, and do not even inform your staff which reg- 
iments are most fit to move. 

G. B. McClellan, 

Major-General. 

Brigadier-General Bates (Confidential) : 

Issue, to-morrow, the clothing you have on hand to your best 
regiments. Supply at least six, fully. Telegraph what is wanting 
to furnish that number completely. Telegraph will be in operation 
to-morrow. You had better come down to see me at my levee. 



G. B. McClellan, 

Major-General. 



* • . II • . * 

These telegrams, received at about four o'clock on 
Saturday afternoon, were acted upon immediately. The 
eleven regiments were paraded for muster and inspec- 
tion, and every man and musket personally examined 
by nine o'clock p. m. When the parade was dismissed 
there were eleven good regiments of ten thousand men 
in all, well officered, and ready to take the field. A 
military force any general would have been proud to 
command. On Monday following, there was not left 
of it all so much as an organized corporal's guard. 

On the intervening Sunday, the governor and gen- 
eral commanding the department, came to the camp 
quite early in the day, and after a long conference to- 
gether, concocted the following order, which had the 
effect to throw the whole camp into chaos, and to make 
it necessary to begin anew the formation of these 
eleven regiments : 

General Headquarters Adjutant-General's Office, 

Columbus, O., May 26th, 1861. 
Special Order No. 246. 

The eleven regiments of infantry now at Camp Dennison, will 
be organized for the three years' service, upon the following basis : 

1. The elementary organization will be by companies. A ma- 
jority of the members of a company must offer such service before 
the company can be accepted. 

2. Accepted companies are permitted to recruit from the rem- 
nants of companies declining the three years' service, -and failing 
to recruit sufficiently therefrom, then from other sources. 

3. A company, when full, will nominate its officers by ballot, 
for the approval of the commander-in-chief. 

4. If all the companies of a regiment offer service as above, 
the original regimental organization will remain unchanged, and 
such regiment will proceed to nominate its officers for the approval 
of the commander-in-chief. 

5. If all the companies do not offer such services, the regiment 
will be filled up by the assignment of other companies by the com- 



* • • 12 • . * 

mander-in-chief, but in no case will the ballot be taken for com- 
pany or field officers until the full complement of men for a company, 
or the full complement of companies for a regiment, shall be made up. 

6. The nominations made as hereinbefore provided, will be 
approved by the commander-in-chief, subject to the following con- 
ditions, in accordance with the request of the Secretary of War, viz: 
that the officers nominated shall be of unquestioned patriotism and 
morals, of military knowledge, and sound health. 

7. The evidence required by the commander-in-chief of com- 
pliance with the foregoing provisions, will be the certificate of the 
general commanding at Camp Dennison, to whom the company 
rolls will be returned. 

8. Every company must report the names of those willing to 
enter the three years' service by Tuesday noon, the 28th instant. 

9. All companies reporting a majority for the three years' serv- 
ice will be arranged in their respective regiments, and will proceed 
to recruit the necessary complement of men within such time as the 
general commanding shall determine. 

10. The form of oath to be administered by the mustering 
officer shall be for three years' service if the war shall so long 
continue. 

By Order of the Commander-in-Chief, 

H. B. Carrington, 

Adjutant-General. 

It is needless to say, that this order, although framed 
with some ingenuity, proved utterly impracticable. 

One of the first manifestations of this order was to 
stir up a rivalry for the offices, and night after night 
meetings were held in the different companies ; speeches 
made to ■ induce re-enlistments with promotion to the 
orator, so that the camp became more like a scene 
of political husting than a military encampment. 

Another effect, more serious in its consequences, was 
the efforts of those whose ardor had cooled and wanted 
to get off, and yet were ashamed to acknowedge it, 
in persuading their companions not to re-enlist so as to 
be an excuse for themselves. 



* . . i 3 • • * 

The Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth regiments of my own 
brigade were the first to perfect their organizations, and 
to be mustered into service ; the other regiments were 
more slow. 

Although the order authorized the mustering in of 
separate companies, yet, when at the request of Col- 
onel Loren Andrews (a zealous and .good officer) who 
said he had seven reliable companies ready for mus- 
ter, and he was sure that the mustering of these once 
begun, the other three companies would catch the 
enthusiasm and fall into ranks, be mustered in their 
turn, and thus complete his full regiment. I ordered 
the mustering officer to proceed. I was met with a 
positive order from headquarters forbidding such action, 
and notifying me not to begin a muster unless sure of 
the entire completeness of the regiment ; that the Gov- 
ernment would receive only complete regiments. Of 
course the order was obeyed ; but I took the liberty of 
a citizen to suggest that as an army of five hundred 
thousand men was called, it would be advisable to ac- 
cept and muster by companies, or even single men, 
who once in service could be formed into regiments. 
As the war progressed this course was adopted. 

The inconvenience of this narrow construction of the 
call was felt in more than one instance. A colonel 
would report his regiment as ready for muster, and 
when paraded, and the men called upon to take the 
oath, a half or a fourth of them would refuse, and 
thus prevent the mustering of any. 

Again the changes of organization without separating 
the two organizations — three months' and three years' 
men — worked changes of the officers. Companies would 
have duplicate captains, duplicate lieutenants ; regiments 



* • H • * 

duplicate field officers. In vain, authority was requested 
to correct this anomalous condition by transferring super- 
numerary officers and men. The only replies were 
in impracticable orders and suggestions. 

The whole seemed an interminable muddle ; but, 
determined to save this fine body of officers and men, 
and to accomplish their organization, there seemed but 
one course to pursue. Explaining my plans to Gen- 
eral Cox, on whose judgment I greatly relied, and who, 
throughout had freely and willingly borne his share of 
the work and ably assisted me, and with his advice I 
ordered every officer and man who was not ready to 
immediately re-enlist for three years, to leave the camp 
and go home, and there await further orders. Gov- 
ernor Dennison heartily seconded this act by promptly 
furnishing the necessary transportation for the men to 
travel. The discordant elements left; the regiments 
rapidly organized ; were mustered into the service 
for three years, and the work was done. 

After all this, came a letter from the authorities at 
Washington with a plan to settle the whole trouble. 
General McClellan called a council of the generals 
and colonels in my office, and read the document. 
It thanked and complimented the men for their patri- 
otism in coming forward to defend their country, and 
assured them that their services should be received. It 
then went on to provide, that when, b}' the re-organi- 
zation a company had two captains, both should serve. 
The three months' captain should become the junior 
to his successful rival and so on. This looked like 
bringing back the old confusion, and when my opinion 
was asked as to what should be done, I unhesitat- 
ingly replied, w ' file the document in your pigeon hole 



* . . i 5 • • * 

and never let it see daylight. The troops are ready 
for the field. Let the responsibility rest where it belongs." 

It appeared to me that the issuing of order No. 246 
was a mistake ; that it hazarded the loss of eleven line 
regiments. To propose re-electing all the officers 
when the urgency for troops was so great, was worse 
than trading horses while crossing a stream. 

I have yet to learn why the men who were will- 
ing to do so, could not have been re-enlisted for 
three years without disturbing the existing organiza- 
tions. Nearly all of my own brigade had already 
pledged themselves to at once re-enlist. The places of 
three months 1 men could have been supplied by recruits 
as their times expired, and the troops could have 
been used in the meanwhile, thus entailing but little 
loss of time. 

However, the reorganization, notwithstanding the 
apparent turmoil and fuss, was accomplished in about 
thirty days, and may stand as a valuable lesson to 
any other general who may hereafter have the luck 
to command another Camp Dennison. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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